Remarkable Fossil Sea Creature Shows Soft Parts of Body Including Tentacles

[n2doc]

ScienceDaily (Mar. 28, 2011) — Researchers from China, Leicester and Oxford have discovered a remarkable fossil which sheds new light on an important group of primitive sea creatures.

The 525-million-year-old fossil belongs to a group of tentacle-bearing creatures which lived inside hard tubes. Previously only the tubes have been seen in detail but this new specimen clearly shows the soft parts of the body including tentacles for feeding.

Details of the discovery have just been announced in the journal Current Biology.

The creature belongs to a group called pterobranch hemichordates which are related to starfish and sea urchins but also show some characteristics that offer clues to the evolution of the earliest vertebrates. About 30 species of pterobranch are known to exist today although 380-490 million years ago a group of these animals called graptolites were common across the prehistoric oceans.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/03/110324153024.htm

[Ian David]

1. Here are some more pictures of Pterobranches

http://bill.srnr.arizona.edu/classes/182/lecture%202007-09.htm


http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/chordata/hemichordata.html